Fact-sheets on COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples

“These fact sheets are an important tool to support the work of indigenous people and human rights defenders’ activities. With these, they familiarize themselves with the vocabulary, design and formulation of recommendations emanating from different United Nations human rights mechanisms.”

Francisco Cali Tzay, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples


Our fact-sheets aim to support the work of indigenous activists and human rights defenders working on issues related to Indigenous Peoples. Franciscans International also hopes that they will serve as a tool to become familiar with the vocabulary, design and formulations coming from the different United Nations human rights mechanisms and that they will facilitate advocacy work at the national, regional, and international levels.

Each fact-sheet is dedicated to a different theme and contains a general description of the problem, some general and specific recommendations, and a section dedicated to other authoritative sources related to each issue.

While the recommendations are related to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them can be adapted to address human rights situations more generally.

You can download the combined fact-sheets here. They are also available in Spanish, Portuguese and Q’eqchi, and cover the following topics:

Access to health care and vaccines General non-discrimination clauseWomen and gender-based issues
Access to COVID-19 informationFree, prior and informed consentTraditional medicine
Water and sanitationRight to adequate foodHuman rights defenders